I just spent the last couple days with good buddy and portrait photographer, Gary Blair, who came in for the weekend.  Gary and I have been friends since we met in ‘87 when his Dad, “Big Daddy” Blair, was a spokesperson for Hasselblad.  Oh, who am I kidding, if you knew “Big Daddy” he was a spokesperson for everything that had anything to do with photography!

 

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Skip, Sheila and Gary – Photo by Charlene Bean

I always keep it short on Sunday mornings, so here’s the point.  I just had an terrific weekend and in all honesty, we didn’t do anything except just hang out and talk a lot.  What did we talk about?  Well, a lot about each of our lives, but a lot about photography and mutual friends.  We’ve both been to hundreds of conventions, programs by other photographers and reminesced over so many stories.  At one point Gary explained to a friend of Sheila’s that the two of us getting together for the weekend made it feel like “Big Daddy” was still with us.

It made me realize how lucky I’ve been and how important it is to keep going to every single program and convention.  When you attend a workshop, make it a point to meet as many people as you can. Stay in touch with people you meet and before you know it, you’ll start to build a little history.  Pretty soon that history starts turning into the foundation of what makes photography so special. 

Friendships kick off because of chemistry and some common denominator, but you have still have to make the effort to keep it going.  I’ve set it a dozen times, just in this blog alone…

The best part of this industry has nothing to do with photography.  It’s all about the incredible friendships that come out of everyone’s passion and mutual love for the craft!